Armenians ask Turkey to recognise genocide 90 years on

The Independent – United Kingdom
Apr 25, 2005

Anne Penketh Diplomatic Editor

Hundreds of thousands of people have marched through the Armenian
capital, Yerevan, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armenian
genocide.

As Armenians across the world marked the grim anniversary, a British
genocide prevention charity urged the Government to recognise the
genocide, and to encourage Turkey to do likewise.

Up to 1.5 million Christian Armenians were slaughtered during the
First World War by the Ottoman government in what was then Turkish
Armenia.

Although France, which is home to 400,000 Armenians, and eight other
European states have officially recognised the massacre as genocide,
Turkey has refused to do so.

The German parliament is to consider a resolution which calls on
Turkey to recognise the genocide and which admits to German
co-responsibility, as Turkey’s ally in the war.

‘Partly through approval and through failure to take effective
preventive measures, there was a German co-responsibility for this
genocide,’ said Chancellor Gerhard Schrýder’s spokesman, Gernot
Erler. ‘The Bundestag asks the Armenian people for their forgiveness.’

James Smith, the chief executive of Aegis Trust, a British charity,
said: ‘We understand that Turkey is an important ally within
Nato. However, the time is long overdue for the British Government to
encourage Turkey to come to terms with its past, and to join other
European states in giving the Armenian genocide the recognition it
deserves.’

The Turkish government, which is pressing to join the European Union,
refuses to recognise the figure of 1.5 million dead and says Armenians
were among many victims of a partisan war that also claimed many
Muslim lives from April 1915.

The commemorations in Yerevan began on Saturday night when thousands
of people held a torchlight vigil at a granite obelisk on a hilltop
where a flame has burned since 1965.

Armenia and its neighbour, Turkey, do not have diplomatic relations.